Gen, drama, PG-13 (language, violence)

Season 9, shortly before “Beachhead”

Spoilers: anything up to “Beachhead”

Author’s notes: Minor references to my stories “Changing the Guard” and “My Dinner with Vala,” but should make sense even if you haven’t read them.

 

 

 

As what Cameron Mitchell was tempted to call “the team formerly known as SG-1” assembled around the briefing table, they were surprised to find two members of SG-8 trooping in as well. Somehow Vala Mal Doran had arrived ahead of them all and was casually seated at the foot of the table. She was wearing BDUs, more or less, but her black t-shirt seemed lower cut than any other on base. She had her knees hooked over the arm of the chair; Mitchell could have sworn her eyes narrowed when she saw the woman on SG-8.

 

“Hi, Daniel!” A woman with strawberry-blond hair smiled and snagged the seat next to him and Cameron sat across from him, with Teal’c at his left.

 

“Friend of yours, Dr. Jackson?” Mitchell frowned a little as she greeted Teal’c with equal warmth but looked quizzically at him.

 

“Andrea’s on SG-8. I thought you guys were on Mithjorth, though,” he said, turning to the young captain.

 

“We were; we just came back. . . .”

 

General Landry’s appearance stopped the conversation. He introduced the two SGC personnel whom Cameron didn’t know. Captain Andrea Larsson, SG-8’s linguist and cultural liaison, was the woman sitting next to Daniel. Major Tom Freedman, a Marine and head of SG-8, had seated himself across from Teal’c; he was a tall but slender African-American. “You’ve heard of Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell, but I’m not sure you two have met him.” Cam bobbed his head at the two new faces. Andrea flashed him a quick smile but then leaned to see Vala around Freedman. “And that, of course, is Vala Mal Doran, who is rather attached to Dr. Jackson at the moment.” Daniel sighed and rolled his eyes. A snort escaped from Andrea.

 

“I see you’ve heard of me!” Vala exclaimed. “Just remember,” she said in warning clearly directed at the other woman, “Daniel”—she drew out the name as she said it warmly—“is mine.” Daniel slumped in his chair as the captain let out another snort.

 

“Ms. Mal Doran,” said Gen. Landry, “Can we please not go through this sort of thing again?”

 

“Of course, General, now that we’re all clear on that.” She smiled, swung around to sit very properly in the chair with both feet on the floor, and folded her hands on the table.

 

Landry went on. “I’ll keep this brief. Mithjorth has requested the presence of SG-1, and specifically Dr. Jackson, for the funeral rites of King Einarr.”

 

“Einarr? What happened?” Daniel straightened up again quickly.

 

“Heart attack, we think,” supplied Andrea. “We’re still introducing our medical technology slowly, and of course they don’t want an autopsy for a war hero, so we don’t know for sure. It was sudden, and at a feast.”

 

“Sounds like a good way to go,” said Mitchell easily, but everyone looked surprised at his contribution.

 

“Not really, sir; until very recently, the warriors expected to go out in battle,” Andrea said.

 

“You mean, ‘It’s a good day to die,’ Klingon kind of stuff?”

 

“Indeed,” Teal’c said, winning a frown from Daniel and snickers from the two members of SG-8.

 

Daniel answered, “I suppose so. SG-1 and SG-8 brokered the first real peace on this planet in living memory. If you’re used to the idea of an honorable death, a heart attack is a bad way to go. . . .”

 

“Some of his people are upset,” said Andrea. “We were on our semi-annual visit when it happened, and I think a few of them blame us. They might be right, actually; our visit caused the usual excitement and feasting, and it might have been a bit much for the old king. He lost his wife a couple of months ago and hasn’t really been the same since, apparently.” Tom nodded.

 

“That’s too bad,” Daniel said with genuine regret. “I would have liked to see them both again. But why do you want us now? Is there a problem?”

 

“Well, his son Eirik got kind of . . . testy about the whole thing,” Andrea continued. “He grabbed the crown. . . . ”

 

“Literally!” Freedman supplied. “When Einarr went down, Eirik picked it up, wiped off the food that had gotten on it, and put it on his head.”

 

“Ooh,” said Daniel.

 

“Not quite what his people had in mind,” Andrea said. “As you know—well, I suppose Colonel Mitchell doesn’t know—”

 

“Don’t forget me!” Vala waved from the end of the table.

 

“How can she?” Daniel mumbled. Mitchell felt like a bobblehead as he swung around looking at one to another.

 

“Guests from the SGC brought a lot of new ideas to Mithjorth at once. They were fascinated by us, and, well, we might have said a bit more than we should.” Daniel studied the ceiling as Larsson spoke. “For a time, they had a tradition of any male in the royal family being able to take the throne; it really depended on whom the ruling Goa’uld liked. Then too, the king had ruled pretty much at Martius’s pleasure. . . .”

 

“Martius?” Mitchell asked in some confusion. “Isn’t that Latin or something?”

 

“Yes, actually,” Daniel answered eagerly. “We don’t know whether word of the Roman god had spread up to these Norse people before he brought them through the Stargate to mine a planet with a climate like their own, or whether he just decided to keep using a name he had probably used with Mediterranean peoples too.” Landry was showing signs of impatience. “But then Martius stopped coming, and eventually the last of his Jaffa were gone. Then, as often happens”—Landry cleared his throat—“one family grew strong and established the eldest son as the next king. That had been in place for four generations before our visit.” He paused and started to fidget with a pen as he continued, “I spoke with their scribes a lot, and, um, asked some questions, and as things hadn’t been going awfully well lately, and nobody was really impressed with what we’d call Crown Prince Eirik, they realized they really weren’t sure why they had gone to that new system. Remember, they had changed to that new system of kingship almost within living memory. They still had partitive inheritance, after all, not primogeniture. It didn’t necessarily make sense for the throne to go to the oldest son.”

 

Cameron shut his mouth as soon as he realized it was hanging open and managed to ask, “Partitive?”

 

“Partitive inheritance is when every heir gets a piece. Primogeniture is when most or all of it goes to the oldest son,” Andrea answered quickly. “Or daughter,” she added.

 

“Or daughter,” Daniel echoed. “They do let women inherit, although none has been king. Yet. So they started asking questions about how we did things, and, um, I started to answer before I thought better of it, and when I did—think better of it, I mean—Jack jumped in, and I couldn’t stop him. So pretty soon they’d had a crash course in American representative democracy, with a brief discussion of parliamentary and other systems. Which they all thought was pretty nuts. And they’re right, actually.”

 

“For a population like theirs,” Andrea added immediately, seeing Landry’s face darken.

 

Daniel went on to explain that Mithjorth had no large nations but a number of small tribes. Centuries of harsh climate and rule by Martius meant the population never grew much. When the naquada was nearly mined out, Martius had abandoned them. Tradition ensured that naquada remained the most valuable metal. “Hence our mistake: we saw people adorned with naquada and thought the planet must be naquada-rich.”

 

Landry pointedly checked his watch. “You know, if I’m not really needed here, I have other things I could be doing.”

 

Daniel looked surprised. “Sir? You called this meeting. . . .”

 

“Yes. I had the odd idea that I’d tell you what to do.” It was Mitchell’s turn to snort.

 

“I’m sorry, sir,” Vala said unexpectedly. “I’ll try to keep him under better control.”

 

Landry stood up. “Okay, folks. Here’s the Reader’s Digest Condensed version. Freedman and Larsson tell me Eirik is a problem, and some of Eirik’s people want SG-1 there because they have great faith in your persuasive powers and ability to sort out problems.”

 

“But Sam and Jack won’t be there!” Daniel protested. “Unless . . . ?”

 

Landry shook his head. “They have higher priorities right now. SG-1 is . . . between missions. And they asked for you specifically, Dr. Jackson. There isn’t much benefit to Earth from this, but I figure you’re still learning to work together as a team”—Mitchell started to smile but stopped when he turned to look at Teal’c’s and saw the Jaffa’s eyebrows shooting into his hairline—“albeit perhaps a temporary team, and this is something you can do together. We can’t send you off alone, Dr. Jackson. Though I suppose if you don’t want to go. . . .”

 

“I didn’t say that! I’d—of course I’ll go back to Mithjorth.”

 

Vala called out, “I’m game too! Although I will expect some compensation for my efforts. You know, General, I’ve been working with this team for weeks, and I haven’t been paid! I’ve been having to get money approved by Accounting to buy clothes!”

 

“Taxpayers paid for what you wore in DC?” Daniel asked in shock.

 

Mitchell turned to Teal’c. “Well, it’s obvious where we come in. God knows what they’ll do to each other offworld without us.”

 

Daniel made a face. “We’ll be with SG-8. We’ll be fine. You can keep working on putting together the new SG-1.” Cam started to object but was cut off by Landry.

 

“Dr. Jackson and Capt. Larsson, you can brief Col. Mitchell; Capt. Larsson and Maj. Freedman, you bring SG-1—current and former members—up to speed. Dismissed,” Landry said before he walked out.

 

Cameron jumped to his feet too. “Whoa! I thought we were a team! I mean are a team! And here’s a great opportunity to work together offworld where we’re not getting our butts kicked by Priors and Ori and all.” He appealed to Teal’c. “Look, I know you haven’t re-upped, and I’m not trying to force you to do anything you don’t want, but is it really safe to leave those two alone on another planet?”

 

Teal’c looked up and down the table. “You are correct.” He waited a beat. “I have great respect for the people of Mithjorth. We must protect them from—”

 

“Hey!” Vala shouted. Daniel was glaring from Vala to Teal’c to Mitchell, obviously trying to decide if he was included in the insult.

 

Landry popped his head back in. “SG-1, SG-8, and company, you have a go. You’ll depart as soon as you can. Get moving.”

 

 

 

Mitchell and the others headed down to the infirmary; Larsson and Freedman had been cleared before their mission, but the others needed pre-mission exams before they could leave.

 

Cameron was grateful that Andrea provided more specifics on the way to the infirmary. “Eirik not only seized the crown, we think he plans to begin raiding his neighbors again. He won’t say anything in front of us, and won’t let his men either, but the older men have dropped some pretty clear hints to us.”

 

“Eirik thinks we’d betray him,” Tom Freedman chimed in; he had been quiet until now but was clearly following the exchange closely.

 

“Which you’re kind of doing right now?” Daniel asked.

 

Tom smiled. For Cam’s benefit, he added, “Einarr got tribute from everyone in ‘the good old days’; Eirik blames us for the end of that.”

 

Daniel snorted. They packed an elevator while a nervous airman decided he’d take the next one. “Tribute wasn’t worth much; they couldn’t make up for lost harvests, and the other tribes are practically out of naquada! What the hell does he think he’s going to get raiding them? Slaves?” Teal’c let out something between a sigh and a growl.

 

“They have slaves?” Mitchell asked. “Could we please start at the beginning?”

 

“It would take too long, sir,” Andrea helpfully answered.

 

“Thought you read all our reports,” Daniel said.

 

“Well, yeah, but . . . you know . . . they all kinda get mixed together after a while!” It wasn’t fair; they were ganging up on him! Mitchell remembered his question. “Slaves?”

 

“They haven’t practiced slavery within the lifetime of anyone now on Mithjorth,” Daniel said. “They used to. It didn’t work too well.”

 

“Adult slaves frequently escaped or even killed their masters. Children grew up,” Teal’c explained tersely.

 

“They took women and children. They’d kill any men, even if they were too old to put up much fight. You can imagine what they did with women and girls.” Even Vala looked grim at that. “But it didn’t even work! That’s why it stopped.” Daniel explained that Martius had encouraged slavery to have a steady workforce and natives to discipline them, since he stationed few Jaffa on the planet. As the mines dried up, slaves could not be kept busy there. Farming slaves had a tendency to burn the crop right before harvest and run for freedom while their owners tried put out the fire. Other uses for slaves put them in or near family huts, where they could be even more dangerous. They piled out of the elevator while Daniel finished the explanation.

 

“And even though women aren’t warriors there,” Andrea added, “they do use knives, and now they hunt too.”

 

“So why start it up again?” Mitchell asked

 

“Because Eirik is a fool,” Teal’c said bluntly.

 

They had reached the infirmary. A nurse asked them to wait and went to get the doctors.

 

Daniel gave a sad smile. “Eirik was what, fourteen when we first arrived? Four years ago. He was a kid in training to be a warrior—but warriors had outlived their usefulness. The planet has a short growing season. Apparently Martius used to bring some food when the mines were still worth working, but once he was gone, the land could barely support the people there. War was disastrous, especially as they had developed a sort of grenade—”

 

“Grenade?” Cam asked incredulously.

 

“Firebomb would be more accurate, sir,” Andrea explained. “They have gunpowder, though they still prefer swords. Martius stamped out their science for years, but in the decades after he left, the Skalifolk began experimenting. Firebombs meant that if you got even a few fighters close to a field, you could destroy the crop. People would starve.”

 

“But what’s the point?” Cam wondered.

 

“Exactly!” Daniel said. “That’s why we were able to establish peace here. They were already tired of it; they were just waiting for a better way. Einarr had established supremacy over all the tribes in the area, but the tribute wasn’t really worth anything. They fought out of . . . habit, I guess.”

 

“The warrior lifestyle isn’t easy to give up if you don’t have another way of life,” Andrea continued. “But mining, fighting, and hunting were all they knew. The population was on the verge of collapse. We had to give them another option, and then they took it.”

 

“So what’s the other option?” Cam was starting to feel like they had a bet to see how many questions they could force him to ask.

 

“They were very impressed, of course, when we showed up,” Daniel answered. “They want what we have.”

 

“Weapons?” Mitchell asked gamely.

 

Andrea answered even before Daniel, “They want to learn! We’ve mostly given them medical teaching so far. We’re going slowly, to preserve their culture, but they know there’s more—and now they’re interested in learning! They were fascinated to find that there are people like themselves on our planet, and they want to know all about life in modern-day Scandinavia. Naturally, we’ve been giving them that sort of info slowly.”

 

Dr. Lam appeared. “Hello?” she asked.

 

“And they’ve always loved stories!” Andrea continued as everyone ignored the doctor. She grinned at Daniel. “Ask him how many kids are named Beowulf and how old they are!”

 

“Hello?” Dr. Lam was clearly getting annoyed.

 

“I’ll bite,” said Mitchell. “Consider yourself asked.”

 

Dr. Lam looked quite surprised when Daniel volunteered for the first physical.

 

“They love it!” Andrea called after Daniel. “Someone still sings it for us every time we come! Somewhat elaborated!” Daniel ignored her as he went behind a curtain.

 

“Beowulf?” Mitchell repeated.

 

“You know,” Daniel called from behind the curtain with a defensive tone. “Beowulf? High school lit? Big guy? Monsters?”

 

“Dr. Jackson,” Dr. Lam’s voice came from behind the curtain as well.

 

“Yes, I know Beowulf!” said Cam. “I’ve just missed the joke.”

 

“It was the perfect story!” Andrea exclaimed. A sigh drifted out of the curtained area.

 

“Their skald sang us a story on our first night. We were expected to reciprocate. DanielJackson told them Beowulf,” Teal’c explained.

 

“He didn’t sing it, though, apparently,” Andrea said regretfully. “Four-year-olds and younger,” she added

“What?!” Cameron asked, bewildered.

 

“Four and younger. No one was named Beowulf on this planet until SG-1 came! They’d never heard the name! Now I can’t even count them! Then there are all the Freyas.” She added, raising her voice again, but the low voices behind the curtain were not aimed at them.

 

“DanielJackson confused Freawaru with the goddess Freya when he first told the story,” Teal’c explained.

 

“She’s a minor character!” came an exasperated voice from behind the curtain.

 

“Aren’t the women always?” asked Vala loudly.

 

“And you messed up the Swedish wars,” Andrea called.

 

“Hey, who doesn’t?” Cam asked rhetorically. Then Warner appeared and Cameron went with him, ordering the others not to continue without him.

 

When Cameron and Daniel had rejoined the group, and after Vala had left, Teal’c reminded them before going back for his check, “We were discussing Eirik’s plans.”

 

 “Should we wait for you?” Daniel asked. “Dumb question,” he added as Teal’c went behind a curtain. “We could whisper in the hallway and he’d hear us.”

 

“Hey, don’t worry about me!” called Vala from the other end of the infirmary, but no one responded.

 

“Not to be melodramatic, but Eirik’s plans are doomed,” Andrea said, looking at each of them. “If he succeeds in re-establishing the Klingon code—you’re no fun—” she said to Daniel as he rolled his eyes, only to hear “No, he’s not!” from behind a curtain. Andrea continued, “he could bring the population back to the point of collapse within a few years. But he just won’t see it!”

 

“A little too much Beowulf,” said Daniel sadly.

 

“All the stories are like that! After Martius abandoned them, they took most of the religious ones out of heavy rotation, until recently,” she added for Cam’s benefit. “Eirik has always resented us. He was raised to be the big war hero, and then everyone decided they wanted peace.”

 

“And the older men are good with peace?” Cam asked.

 

“The older men know war,” said Tom simply.

 

“What about the whole revenge thing? How come they’re not, you know, keeping alive who did what to whom? Didn’t they do that in Beowulf?” Cameron could remember that much from a long-ago lit class.

 

“Yeah, where it was a ringing success,” Daniel replied with what Mitchell took to be sarcasm. He wondered if he could find a copy of the poem on base before they left.

 

“Again,” Andrea clarified, “the older men know the costs. They were sick of it. They wanted an out, and we brought it. They’d pretty much lost the possibility of compensating for crimes when the naquada was gone. We brought other values, other kinds of compensation. Now one can work off a debt. They produce much more than they used to: more clothing, more tools, even more art!”

 

“You’ve turned them into a consumer culture?” Mitchell asked with a smile.

 

“And when everybody isn’t constantly fighting, there aren’t so many injuries and deaths to work off,” Andrea sidestepped Cam’s question.

 

“Why don’t we just tell them about the Ori and the Priors?” Cameron asked.

 

“We tried that,” Andrea replied. “They want to kill any Priors who come through the ’gate. We tried to tell them that wouldn’t work, but it only seemed to whet their interest, so we dropped that subject fast.”

 

“But—” Cam tried.

 

“Focusing them on a different enemy isn’t necessarily a bad idea,” Daniel said.

 

“They don’t believe us about the threat,” Andrea answered bluntly. “They won’t be worried about the Ori until someone shows up, and I hope to God that’s a long time from now, because these people reverted to the older religion that Martius displaced within living memory. Martius failed them; they returned to their old gods and goddesses, and within a generation SG-1 had shown up and helped them improve their harvests and medicine. They credit their gods for that. They have all the zeal of new converts now.”

 

“So we helped convert them?” Mitchell asked in consternation.

 

“No, they freely chose that a couple of decades or more before we showed up. We did kind of reinforce it,” Daniel conceded, “but not on purpose. No, I can see a religious angle could be very dangerous. Probably the safest appeals would be to their laws and customs; they’ve been keeping the peace that way for four years now.”

 

“Battles? Feuds?” Cam asked. “Knife fights?”

 

“Sure,” Tom answered, “especially when they’re drinking. But again, it’s mostly the young guys!”

 

After a few moments of quiet, Cameron thought he’d better ask, “Anything else I should know?” Andrea looked at Daniel. Daniel looked at the floor. Andrea immediately launched into more explanation of the social structure; Mitchell wondered if she was running interference for Jackson. But Daniel’s faraway gaze quickly returned to the young captain’s animated account, and Mitchell forgot about it.

 

 

 

The group found themselves on Mithjorth not long after finishing in the infirmary—and before Mitchell could find a copy of Beowulf or retrieve the file on the first Mithjorth visit. Vala shivered dramatically in her bulky, SGC-issue coat, about which she had been complaining since donning it. Cameron was glad of the warmth it offered; part of his face was exposed, and he found himself wishing for a ski mask or, better, goggles. “Hey, she has furs!” she said almost at once, pointing at a well-dressed . . . man, it turned out as he drew nearer.

 

“We just got here! Don’t screw this up!” Daniel hissed.

 

“Screw up? You wanna rethink your choice of words, Jackson?” Mitchell breathed, but no one replied.

 

“I won’t, I promise. Now, someone said feast?” Vala immediately walked up to the man she had misidentified. She gave him a big smile and introduced herself. “Hello, I’m Vala.”

 

“Gunnar.” He took her arm and led them towards the enclosure, a tall wooden wall that stretched far back, out of sight. Mitchell looked around at the impressive . . . snow. It was well-packed where they were walking, but in the distance it seemed a lot deeper. The bitter cold brought back dim memories of Antarctica that he quickly pushed to the back of his mind. Through the open gate in the tall wooden enclosure he could see many buildings as they approached, all wooden, most quite small. A few had metal roofs. Most seemed to be without windows.

 

“Well, looks like she has a dinner companion. Maybe this will be fun after all,” Daniel said. They followed Vala and her new friend to the hall, the one tall building. The walls were made of wood, but inside, stone fireplaces blazed at either end. The one large room was lit by torches as well as the fires. It had no windows, only the big doors in one side. Several tables with benches on either side filled the hall, and men and women packed those benches. At one end was a raised platform where a single table stood, far enough from the fire to be comfortable. As promised, Eirik was there, sitting on his father’s chair at the head of the table on the dais. He looked at them as they entered the hall, then looked away again. Gunnar brought them to the high table, and some immediately stood to make room for them on the benches near Eirik.

 

“Boys, don’t move on my account,” Vala said. “I’m sure we can all squeeze in.”

 

Eirik glowered at the group as a whole but beckoned Andrea to the bench to his right. Daniel took the place on his left and began conveying the expected regrets about Einarr and his certainty that Einarr would have a good afterlife while Cameron and the others squeezed in among the assembled warriors. Eirik let Daniel run through the whole speech and continued to stare at him as Daniel elaborated, obviously leaving increasing pauses for Eirik to jump in. Finally Daniel simply stopped.

 

Eirik growled, “I am glad you feel so certain of my father’s welcome in the next world, considering how he died! Were it not for you, he might have gone down in glory.”

 

“The alliances have made all the tribes wealthier,” Andrea answered smoothly. “You have all had good harvests with no one burning anyone else’s crops.”

 

Eirik did not look at her, though other men and women did. “You made my father soft,” he said to Daniel.

 

Daniel looked at Andrea for a moment before returning Eirik’s gaze. “Your father was never soft. He made more changes in a few years than any of the kings before him in a lifetime. Your father was hard as iron and straight as a well-forged sword,” he added, using well-worn formulas that Mitchell guessed he had learned on visits to the planet and reports from SG-8. Daniel had his mouth open to expand when one of the older men took up the theme.

 

“Your father did great deeds for the tribe. He will be remembered well until the end of days.” He stood up, lifted his cup, and then tossed back all the contents. Another stood to do the same.

 

 “Klingons,” Mitchell whispered to Teal’c after a while; they had found space about halfway down the table. “They really are like Klingons.” Teal’c did not reply. “The rest of SG-8 seem happy,” he continued, finally abandoning his attempt to converse with the dour warrior next to him. “Ditto Vala,” he added, raising his head to look about but then quickly looking away as Vala ate a chunk of meat off Gunnar’s knife. Gunnar was still holding the knife and had a broad grin on his face. “You are the only person I can talk to.”

 

Teal’c continued to eat, though he drank only water, unlike the others. “Then talk,” he said after a while. Mitchell’s head slumped back into his hands.

 

Daniel and Andrea said little as the praise of the older men at the table washed around them. Eirik looked peeved. The men were increasingly self-congratulatory and apparently too happy to notice Eirik’s pique. Before the meal had ended, every member of the Earth teams had been pounded on the back more than once by a tablemate. What surprised Mitchell was that women were drinking as hard, and hitting as hard, as the men. “I thought Larsson said the women aren’t warriors!”

 

“No. That remains a role for the men alone.”

 

Freedman heard the inquiry above the dinner—or rather under it, as more and more of the natives were standing to make toasts and forgetting to sit down again. He explained, “Captain Larsson thinks that a people so small can’t afford to lose childbearing women, so no warriors. With the small population, though, most of the other old rules seem to have broken down. The skalds still tell stories where women never went hunting and all doctors were men, but it seems to have been more than ten generations ago.”

 

“You know a lot,” Mitchell said in surprise.

 

“SG-8 is a diplomatic team. I may be a Marine, sir, but I’m not stupid.” He grinned. “We’re not all ‘cocky sons of bitches,’ either, sir.” Mitchell opened his mouth but realized he couldn’t think of a response. Freedman laughed. “I have very good hearing, sir. And General Landry knew it when he told you that.”

 

“So what’s going on now?” He pointed to Eirik, whose face finally seemed to have softened. Mitchell had lost track of the toasts and compliments.

 

“They’re praising his mother, Einarr’s wife, Ulfri.”

 

“That explains it, I guess.” Mitchell tilted his head towards Daniel, who seemed lost in thought, temporarily oblivious of his surroundings. He had heard about Sha’re, of course, from others on base, but he wasn’t sure he should ask Daniel about her.

 

As the evening wore on, people mellowed, except for a few who fell over and crawled or were dragged away to sleep along the wall. More and longer remembrances of King Eirik were offered, some by a singer. At last everyone stood, and SGC members regrouped near the door. The room was now quite hot, between the fires and body heat. A few men began to clear the tables aside. Daniel frowned in thought.

 

“Jackson?” asked Mitchell.

 

“Well, the usual thing is for the warriors—for the men to sleep in the hall, the women in some of the outbuildings.”

 

“Okay. . . .”

 

“This enclosure is large, and the women’s buildings are easily thirty-five meters from this hall,” Teal’c noted helpfully.

 

“Too far,” said Mitchell.

 

Daniel continued to frown. “We don’t know, exactly; we haven’t really experimented enough with distance.”

 

“And you want to do it tonight?” Vala demanded. She had somehow lost Gunnar. Daniel opened his mouth to argue, but she forestalled him. “See if we wake up in the morning?”

 

“Teal’c, how far is the closest women’s building?” Daniel asked.

 

“Don’t be silly, Daniel,” Vala answered before Teal’c could. “You said the warriors. You’re not a warrior!” Daniel opened his mouth as if to argue but never had a chance. “What do married men do, anyway?”

 

“Well, sometimes they . . . visit . . . their wives.”

 

“So? We’ll pretend we’re married.”

 

Daniel blushed. After a pause, he hissed, “We do not want to scandalize these people!”

 

“DanielJackson,” Teal’c intervened, “the Skalifolk are not highly judgmental. I do not believe they would be ‘scandalized,’ as you put it.” He glowered at Vala, however. “DanielJackson’s accomplishments as a warrior. . . .”

 

Vala cut Teal’c off before he could finish. “See? No one will be scandalized. Come on. We’ve already pretended to be married once,” she said, taking Daniel’s arm and starting to walk towards the door.

 

“And we nearly got burned at the altar!”

“That didn’t have anything to do with us being married or not married.” She dragged Daniel closer to the open door and pointed at some buildings. “Which one is ours?”

Daniel leaned against her continuing pull. “Those are not sleeping quarters. They’re kitchens! But more importantly: no, we are not sleeping together!” he hissed.

 

Vala let go of his arm and crossed hers. “And I’m not going to bed never to wake up so that you can preserve your . . . virtue,” she said, looking him up and down.

 

Daniel threw his hands in the air. “I’m not saying we should die!” He pursed his lips.

 

Vala pressed: “I promise I won’t take advantage of you! I swear!” She raised her right hand. “We’ll be like an old married couple.” She leaned towards Andrea for effect and stage-whispered, “We can share a bed, but we’ll pretend we don’t do it any more.”

 

Daniel’s eyes closed and he began breathing fast. He flexed his hands a few times as if trying not to make fists. Freedman and Larsson seemed frozen in place and the lines on Teal’c’s face hardened. This was bad. Cam shifted nervously and tried desperately to intervene, but “Um? Uh?” was all he could manage.

 

Vala said over Cam’s attempts to find something to say, “What? All I said was. . . .”

 

Daniel spun around and was out of the building without even taking time to zip up his coat. Vala started after him in obvious perplexity, but Teal’c moved into her path. “Did you not know that DanielJackson was married?” he asked quietly but sternly. Vala’s eyes grew wide. “Had he but had the chance to find how an ‘old married couple’ truly behaved. . . .”

 

“Yes?” Vala asked.

 

“He loved her deeply. And still does.” Teal’c glared at Vala and stalked out of the hall.

 

“So—what? I remind him of his ex-wife? I remind him that he’s not”—she broke off at the glares from Cam and Andrea.

 

“Lady—and I use that term loosely—did you notice that while they were remembering their dead queen, Jackson was staring out into space? His wife died. She didn’t leave him. If looks could kill, you’d have been drawn and quartered by now,” Cam said in a low voice. “I don’t think he appreciates you trying to take the place of his wife in any way. Any. And especially not tonight.”

 

Vala nodded slowly, not raising her head fully at the end. “That might . . . explain some things.” She looked out the door, but no one was visible. “I’d better apologize.”

 

“I’d give Teal’c a few minutes to talk him down if I were you,” Cam said.

 

 

 

Daniel walked furiously around the outside of the enclosure. The snow was deeper here and not packed down; it took much more work than walking inside, which was what he wanted at the moment. Vala thought she was funny. She had no idea what the hell she was talking about. Daniel shook his head It was easier to be angry with her than to think about the dreams he had once held of growing old with Sha’re. Vala seemed to bring nothing but pain. He was not really surprised when Teal’c called his name only a few minutes after he’d fled the hall. He stopped and waited. “God! Why do I have to spend my life tied to this woman?” he called back while Teal’c closed the remaning distance between them. “And the woman I wanted to spend my life with. . . .” He kicked a clod of snow; it broke apart. “At least Einarr didn’t long outlive Ulfri.”

 

Teal’c closed his eyes briefly. Daniel knew talking about his wife pained his friend as well as himself—perhaps hurt Teal’c more, in a way, as Teal’c had no happy memories of Sha’re. “Vala has not heard about Sha’re. She did not know.”

 

“Well, Jack told her I was married when we were in DC, but she showed no interest in learning anything more.” He kicked at the snow some more. Teal’c watched impassively.

 

Eventually, the Jaffa asked, “Have you much interest in learning about Vala’s past?”

 

Daniel paused. He took off his glasses and wiped a hand over his tired eyes, still burning from the smoke of the fires and torches inside the hall. “Not much. I almost believed her on Prometheus when she told me about ‘her people’”—he used his tone to cast doubt on the accuracy of the words—“but of course she turned out to be lying about damned near everything. And the last time she told me something personal, she was in my bed, trying to seduce me!” Teal’c did not inquire when this exchange had occurred. “I didn’t exactly ask follow-up questions!” Daniel hesitated. “She said she had a fiancé before—before she was taken.” He put his glasses back on. “Kind of like Sha’re.” He turned his face away from Teal’c and said, in a slightly uneven voice, “except that the Tok’ra helped Vala, but they couldn’t . . . couldn’t help Sha’re.”

 

Teal’c put a hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “They never had the chance,” he said.

 

“If I had just gotten her back to the SGC when I found her on Abydos, pregnant! If—”

 

Teal’c’s hand tightened. “I could have suggested it. I should have taken you both back at once. I thought—we thought—we had time. There should have been time. We could not know that Heru’ur was coming, and that Apophis himself would return early.”

 

“I know,” Daniel said after a long, shaky breath. “And we’ve been over and over this, Teal’c, but God! It still hurts!” He looked at his friend again. “I know it still hurts you too. And it isn’t doing either of us any good.” He kicked the ground once more. “Or Sha’re.” He pulled off his glasses and wiped his eyes again; Teal’c looked away and removed his hand, allowing Daniel a little more space, for which he was grateful.

 

“I don’t believe in the Ori,” Daniel said more steadily. “They have power, but divinity?” He snorted. “I sure as hell never believed the Goa’uld were gods. The Ancients aren’t gods. I don’t even know if I believe in a god, or goddess, or gods. But I—I don’t have any good reason—but I still believe, still need to believe that Sha’re isn’t gone forever. Do you believe in life after death, Teal’c?” He had heard Teal’c’s answer to this question before, but he needed it again.

 

Teal’c spoke slowly and carefully. “To my knowledge, DanielJackson, I have never encountered any gods. I do not know whether true gods exist. But I cannot believe that the spark . . . in your wife . . . could be extinguished. Whether she lives in our hearts and memories, or on some other plane of being, I do not know.”

 

Daniel relaxed a bit. He and Teal’c had previously discussed the subject of an afterlife different from ascension with no more conclusive results, but he found it comforting to know that Teal’c still held on to the possibility. After a moment, he began, “So I suppose we should—oh, God, she followed me.” He saw Vala standing some distance away, looking pointedly at the ground but making a small show of hopping around to keep warm. “I guess I can’t just run off. Again.” He took a deep breath. “She can’t hear us from there, can she?”

Teal’c considered. “I do not believe she can. Especially with this wind.”

 

Vala lifted her head a little to look at them and gave a tentative wave, but her face could not be seen clearly. Daniel frowned. “Cover me,” Daniel said resignedly. “I’m going in.”

 

Teal’c followed Daniel to where Vala stood.

 

“I guess I should apologize,” she said. Daniel folded his arms and nodded. “I forgot . . . that you’d been married, and I was . . . wrong . . .” She kept looking off to the side as if struggling to recall words she’d memorized. “I was not trying in any way to replace—of course I couldn’t . . . um . . . I’m just making this worse, aren’t I?” she asked with a wince. Daniel glared and didn’t say anything. She cringed.

 

Daniel gave up his sternness with a small laugh even as he wondered briefly if her awkwardness was deliberate. “You really have no idea how to apologize, do you?”

 

“Oh, I’m very good at apologies. Haven’t you seen me? I mean, I’m very, very good. Just think of how I apologized for impersonating Qetesh!” Daniel rolled his eyes. “It’s just that those apologies . . . aren’t . . . necessarily . . . the ones I mean.” She waited hopefully.

 

“Perhaps that’s why they didn’t think much of your apologizing for impersonating a god for years?” Daniel said, trying to put his hands where his hips would be under his coat. She nodded anxiously. Teal’c stood just behind Daniel’s shoulder.

 

Daniel relaxed his arms. “Maybe we can find two outbuildings close to each other that they’ll let us use. Andrea stayed in one of the larger ones, I think, but I haven’t been here for years. We’ll check with her. If you can bed down in there, maybe I can find space in one nearby.”

 

“Will you be chaperone?” Daniel heard Vala hiss to Teal’c as he started walking back towards the gate.

 

“Don’t push your luck!” he called without looking back.

 

“I mean for him to stay with you!” she cried. “I don’t want you to doubt my intentions!”

 

 

 

“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Dr. Jackson so angry,” Andrea told Cam. “And I’ve seen him angry before.”

 

“Oh, he blows up big, but he usually cools down pretty quick too,” Cam said confidently, though he was not as certain as he tried to sound. Then he added, “’Course, I haven’t had him blow real good at me yet.”

 

“Really?” Andrea giggled a little. “That could be exciting,” she added, more to herself than to him.

 

Cam looked down his nose at her. She wasn’t short, but he still had a few inches. “You’re not forgetting that I outrank you.”

 

“Oh! Right!” She looked abashed but sounded hopeful: “That could be exciting, sir?”

 

Cam laughed. “You look like you just got out of the Academy! But you mouth off like—how long have you been with the SGC?”

 

“It was my first posting after grad school, actually,” she confessed. “I spent grad school wondering why the Air Force was so enthused about paying for my degree in Scandinavian studies, and then less than three months after I finished I was here.”

 

“Here at the SGC?” Cam was confused.

 

“Here here. On this planet. As soon as Dr. Jackson got these people talking, negotiating, they brought SG-8 in. It was only my second time off-world.” She paused. “I think they’d hoped I’d work with the Asgard, but General O’Neill seems to have more of an in with them. There’s plenty for me to do, though. Scandinavian and Germanic cultures aren’t really Daniel’s area of expertise.”

 

Cam nodded. “Yeah. I did read SG-1’s file on the mission, even if I don’t remember all of it.” He grinned suddenly as he dredged up a detail he’d been trying to recall for hours. “Oh, so that’s why you said Jackson exploding at me could be exciting! Didn’t he and O’Neill have a big dust-up here?”

 

Andrea grinned too. “It didn’t quite come to that, sir, though Einarr and his people would certainly have encouraged them! It wasn’t even much of a shouting match. More of a glaring match, really. Then-Colonel O’Neill wanted to scrap the mission because the naquada mines turned out to be producing very little, but Daniel insisted that once they’d gotten involved, they couldn’t leave.” She suddenly paused, smiling a little nervously. “I’m talking out of school. Sorry, sir.”

 

“No, I wanna hear this stuff!” Cam smiled to put her at ease. “See, I’m the new guy, and we’re still acting all nice and polite around each other. The Marines tell me some things—Ferretti tells me a lot—but I’m still kinda feeling my way around here. And sometimes I swear Ferretti’s pulling my leg. I’ll take any help I can get. If I remember right, Jackson found they couldn’t negotiate access to the naquada without getting the tribes into some sort of truce, but after the truce was made, they found there really wasn’t enough naquada to be worthwhile.”

 

“Right. The official report may have been a little, um, inaccurate, sir,” she said. “Negotiations were nowhere near done when we found out about the naquada. After Col. O’Neill and Daniel had their little disagreement and . . . got past it, Col. O’Neill sent Maj. Carter and Teal’c out further to check for more naquada, just in case. It bought us a couple of extra days before we officially announced that there wasn’t enough naquada left to be strategically useful. By then, the tribes were seriously negotiating, I was up to speed, and the tribes were accepting me enough to continue negotiations without Daniel.”

 

“So how did Jackson persuade O’Neill?”

 

“You know, I really don’t know the answer to that, sir.”

 

From the look on her face, she might share Cameron’s curiosity; he was going to push, recalling Jackson’s odd look in the infirmary, but Freedman joined them. “I’ve got a place for Dr. Jackson in the hut with some of the older men, and it’s within forty feet of the place you usually sleep, Captain Larsson. Think Vala can bunk with you?”

 

Mitchell stared at him. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

 

“’Cause I just got it finalized.”

 

“You could have told us you were on it. Maybe before Jackson stormed out and the big guy took off after him?”

 

“What, and get in the middle of it? No thanks!” Freedman waved his hands as if pushing something away. “SG-1 starts arguing, I duck and cover.”

 

“Remember, sir, he’s a lieutenant colonel,” Andrea mock-whispered to Tom.

 

“I duck and cover, sir!”

 

“You people really have hung out with SG-1 too much,” Mitchell said.

 

“Thank you, sir!” they answered. Freedman saluted smartly.

 

With sleeping arrangements settled, Teal’c and Daniel went to a hut with some older men, and Vala repaired with Andrea to one nearby. Cam and the rest of SG-8 settled onto benches in the main hall, which Cam was pleased to discover were covered with warm, soft furs for sleeping. All the women and children had left, relieving the crowded and airless feeling the hall had during dinner. Freedman told him that these people were completely trustworthy and had their own guards around the enclosure; he never posted a watch, he said, for fear of offending. Then Tom rolled over and seemed to go right to sleep. Must be nice, Cam thought. Once he got past the smells, and the snoring, it wasn’t too bad, and he drifted off soon too.

 

 

 

The next morning, Daniel and Teal’c were already settled in front of one of the fireplaces inside the hall before Mitchell awoke and left his bench to go join them. To Cameron’s surprise, a number of people were already up and around. He felt a little stiff from spending the night on a wood bench, but he’d experienced far worse.

 

“Coffee?” Daniel asked, taking a pot from the fire.

 

“Here?” Mitchell asked.

 

“Any people who accept DanielJackson must accept his coffee drinking, even if they do not themselves indulge,” Teal’c said seriously.

 

Freedman and Larsson came in from a little recon. Daniel poured each of them a cup.

 

“So the older men are saying that Eirik is getting ready for battle,” Daniel began in a low voice as they sat on a couple of benches.

 

“You heard more than I did, sir,” answered Tom in equally hushed tones. “But the guys here were pretty out of it—not much talking.”

 

“Yeah, well, I’m hearing that Eirik plans to move when the funeral is barely over! He figures that if he gets in when they’ve just returned to Bjonn—that’s his closest rival’s hall,” Daniel added as Mitchell opened his mouth to ask, “—they won’t be ready for an attack.”

 

Andrea let out a breath. “That’s more than I could get. The women did tell me he’ll move fast, but they won’t share details.” She glanced around and whispered, “I think they’re afraid. In battle, a husband or brother could find the person he thinks is watching his six . . . isn’t.”

 

Daniel nodded. “The men I talked to have less left to lose. A few of the older ones are on Eirik’s side, though, so we’ve only got a relatively small number against. It’s not like they could effectively revolt.”

 

“Hey, are we even talking about revolt?” Cam hissed in disbelief, fumbling to put his concerns into words. “Are we messing with other people’s business? What about the Prime Directive?” All right, maybe that wasn’t the best choice of words.

 

This time even Andrea rolled her eyes. “Man, you watch too much Star Trek!” Tom exclaimed, adding “sir” belatedly.

 

“We’re not trying to foment revolt,” Daniel said. “We’re just trying to help these people.”

 

“And help means what, exactly?” Cam asked.

 

Andrea and Tom looked at each other while Daniel studied them. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out, sir,” she finally answered.

 

“Hey, we don’t have a strategic interest in this planet,” Cameron reminded them.

 

“We do use this as a training site, actually, sir,” Freedman said.

 

“And whenever they find any Goa’uld artifacts, they share them with us, sir,” added Larsson. “We also have here a kind of laboratory for cultural change—”

 

“Hardly worth getting in the middle of a war,” Cameron said.

 

“But that’s just it,” said Daniel quietly but with force. “We don’t want to get in the middle of a war. We want to prevent one.”

 

Cameron shook his head. “Okay, Freedman. Landry left you in charge of this mission. I’m here mainly as a visitor; my main task is to protect SGC personnel, especially him.” He nodded towards Daniel, who made a rude sound. “So, you got a plan?” he asked the Major.

 

“No, sir, but I’m open to suggestions.” Freedman gave a disarming smile. “We didn’t know until now exactly what Eirik had planned. Raid, probably, but a sneak attack right after the funeral? That’s just not right.”

 

“Hardly the stuff of heroic songs,” Andrea agreed, and Daniel nodded.

 

“You’re sure of this?” Cameron asked, but he saw the others’ attention move behind him and turned around. A figure was approaching.

 

“I trust you slept well, King Eirik,” Andrea said brightly. Eirik growled and pushed past them to the fire.

 

They watched him in silence as he poured the remaining coffee into the fire.

 

“He doesn’t like the smell,” Daniel explained regretfully.

 

“And you aren’t going to say anything?” Cameron raised his eyebrows.

 

“No point in picking a fight, sir,” said Andrea.

 

“Besides, she doesn’t like coffee like I do,” Daniel grinned.

 

Vala entered with a big smile, cutting off Cam’s “Nobody likes coffee like—” with a loud, “Good morning, everyone! Sleep well?” Her eyes went around the group but lingered on Daniel.

 

“Quite well, thank you,” Daniel smiled.

 

“We have a truce?” asked Freedman. Daniel glared. “Hey, need to know! General O’Neill will want this in the report!”

 

“Jack will get your report,” Daniel replied. “I’m not sure about reading it.”

 

Mitchell chuckled. “Jackson, you write the longest reports in the history of the Air Force. It’s no wonder if he doesn’t read yours.”

 

“Detailed,” Daniel corrected. “My reports contain all important details!”

 

Eirik growled again, and the group decided it was best to disperse.

 

 

 

Cameron found himself wishing they didn’t always have to meet outdoors on this planet as the SGC members gathered shortly before midday outside the enclosure to pool information. They had confirmed that Eirik planned an attack to follow hard on the funeral. “So a slight majority don’t want this, but it’s not a democracy,” Mitchell summed up. Several heads bobbed up and down. “So what do we do? Suggest a coup?” He couldn’t believe he was saying this, but he wasn’t even sure what the options were.

 

“You want to offer them a choice between war among the tribes or battles to the death among themselves?” Vala asked with scorn.

 

“What happened to the ‘Prime Directive’?” Andrea inquired with feigned innocence.

 

“As you pointed out, there is no Prime Directive! I suppose these people have never heard of a bloodless coup?” Cam asked more tentatively.

 

 “If Eirik survived any sort of ‘coup,’ sir”—Andrea said the word as if it were in quotation marks, though she stopped short of forming them in the air—“he would never stop planning revenge. And he has enough support to make sure a coup didn’t stay bloodless.”

 

“We aren’t seriously suggesting intervening in these people’s government, sirs?” Freedman asked pointedly. “We can’t do that. It’s not our brief.”

 

“Jackson? You haven’t said anything,” Cam pointed out while silently agreeing with Freedman.

 

Daniel shrugged. “I’m trying to recover from the shock of agreeing with Vala.” Vala made a motion that would have tossed her hair if it hadn’t been securely tucked inside a warm (if unfashionable) hood. He frowned. “We can’t foment rebellion among the people. That’s just . . . .”

 

“The great Daniel Jackson is going to stand by and let people die?” Cam asked in honest shock. He realized after he’d said it that he shouldn’t have included the adjective.

 

Daniel exhaled sharply at the praise. “No! But what do you expect me to do?”

 

“Come up with some brilliant solution and save the day like you always do.” Cam kicked himself again at his wording.

 

“What?”

 

Yeah, he knew Jackson wouldn’t like that. “You know! Like when you found a way for the Enkarans to survive and the Gadmeer to have the planet too.” Mitchell suddenly found himself the object of the same silent glare that Vala had received the night before, though he wasn’t sure why; he just knew he didn’t like it. Maybe he was about to find out what Andrea meant about being on the receiving end of Jackson’s anger. . . .

 

“Could we maybe transplant some of these people to another planet?” Perkins, a young Marine, only recently added to SG-8, broke the silence with great hesitation.

 

“No,” several voices chorused. Daniel explained, “The Stargate is in Eirik’s territory. Even if we could relocate people, he wouldn’t allow it. And these people don’t want to relocate. You weren’t there for the original mission, Derek.” How the hell does he know this guy’s first name? Mitchell wondered, having barely managed to retrieve the surname from his memory. “The population was on the verge of collapse. They’ve made incredible progress over the last few years, but one war—even one bloody battle—could turn the tide back the other way. When we first came we offered to move them off what Jack—General O’Neill—called ‘this godforsaken planet,’ but no one would take us up on it. They were betrayed by their last god, but they returned to the worship of older gods, ones they’ve never seen. They were betrayed by the mines, but naquada is still the most valuable substance on this planet. They may be betrayed by the weather, betrayed by each other, but they will not leave their home and their ancestors’ graves.”

 

Teal’c nodded solemnly. “DanielJackson is correct.”

 

“So—what? We do nothing?” Cameron asked in amazement.

 

“We need to leave these people’s governance up to them, sir,” said Freedman.

 

“That doesn’t mean we can’t give advice,” Andrea said. “We can’t start a revolution, but they’ve been asking how we do things for years. We can volunteer more information.”

 

Vala snorted. “Oh, yes, your people do so well in situations like this.”

 

“Vala’s been watching too much cable news,” Daniel said dismissively. “But Andrea’s right. We can say something. But if we’re not trying to start a revolution—”

 

“And General Landry would have us all up on charges, sir, if we did that,” offered Tom. “Me first.”

 

“I’m not military,” Daniel replied reflexively. “My point is, we’ve been talking to the men, and many of the older, and a few of the younger, think this is a bad plan. Eirik’s been trying to hide this from us, and I don’t think there has been any open discussion at all. Let’s call him on it. We tell him in front of everyone we think this is a bad idea.”

 

“You’re kidding!” Cameron said. “How is that non-interference?”

 

“Who said anything about non-interference?” asked Vala. “We do nothing but interfere.”

 

“We?” asked Daniel, furrowing his brow at Vala. “We’re just talking. That’s what we’re here to do. Everything is above board.”

 

“And they told me you weren’t naïve anymore!” Cameron smiled at Daniel.

 

Daniel rolled his eyes. “I’m not saying we’re going to change Eirik’s mind. It’s just a first step.” He started back towards the hall for the midday meal.

 

“Oh yeah?” Cam called after him. “What’s the next step?” Daniel kept walking and began conferring with Andrea, who had gone right after him. Mitchell turned to Teal’c. “Can he hear me in that thing?” he asked, waving a gloved hand at his own hood. Teal’c followed Daniel without answering.

 

 

 

With a final hiss of, “He listens better to men, you do it,” Andrea sat on a bench while Daniel found himself standing alone before Eirik. Everyone else had just sat down for the meal, except for a few people bringing out the food.

 

Daniel straightened and began formally, “King, we have known each other for many years.” Eirik looked at him coldly and did not answer. After a slight pause, Daniel went on. “We have learned much from you and from your people. We respect your governance and your ways. Yet we have brought some benefits to your people. We have helped your medicine to advance and saved lives that might otherwise have been lost.”

 

“And now you want what in return?” Eirik forestalled the rest of Daniel’s opening speech.

 

“To give further advice and benefit, if we may.” The food servers all stopped where they stood.

 

The new king did not even smile. “You have refused to share your weapons.”

 

Daniel was unfazed. Eirik might be king, but an eighteen-year-old could hardly intimidate like a system lord or even an Unas. “Our greatest benefits are not weapons. Indeed, the help we would give now would be to advise you not to take up yours needlessly.” Gasps were quickly stilled as some of the younger men on the dais looked furiously around the hall, clearly trying to decide whom to blame. Daniel waited for their eyes to return to him before he continued. “Is it true that you plan to attack other tribes, tribes who have paid you tribute for years, before your father’s ashes are even cold?”

 

“Who told you this?” Eirik jumped to his feet.

 

“Not very kingly,” Freedman whispered to Mitchell.

 

Daniel leaned back just slightly as Eirik took a step that was nearly a lunge toward him. Eighteen-year-olds could still be dangerous, especially when armed. His eyes briefly flickered towards the dagger at Eirik’s belt, but he continued, “This is no path for a warrior.”

 

“Been listening to you?” Daniel heard Cam say to Teal’c behind his hand.

 

“What do you know of warriors?” Eirik roared in Daniel’s face.

 

“I have fought the false gods we call Goa’uld—ones like Martius, who abandoned you,” Daniel answered coolly. “I have killed some myself.”

 

“Some over and over,” Cam whispered to Freedman.

 

Daniel wished the peanut gallery would stop distracting him but could not afford to draw attention to Mitchell with so much as a look. He continued, “I have been wounded” (“Mortally,” Cam added quietly) “fighting on more worlds than you can count.” Eirik stiffened. “I have come back to fight again—and to tell you, and others who will listen, that talking is better than fighting. Trade is better than fighting. And life is better than death.”

 

Eirik pointedly turned his back on Daniel and looked to his supporters, ignoring the SGC personnel mixed in with them. “And when are we most alive?”

 

“When we fight!” one called out and another echoed.

 

“And then we die,” called an older man from the middle of the hall, “and then we are least alive.” A brief thrill of nervous laughter ran through the hall.

 

“A good king rules with the advice of his counselors,” Daniel said. “I will not stand in the way of your own people’s counsel. I merely add the wisdom of my people.” He sat down on the bench.

 

Teal’c rose from the crowded bench suddenly and with a fluidity that surprised Cameron. “Hear me,” he said. He stood still and waited for all other movement in the hall to stop. “You know me as a warrior. Your neighbors are not your enemies. Save your battles for when real challenges come—as they will.” Teal’c remained motionless until Eirik acknowledged him with a glance, then he bowed his head slightly and sat again. Eirik’s mouth had a hard set to it.

 

Eirik looked around the room. “I will take counsel with my people after the meal. But eat!” He waved his arms and the servers began moving hastily. “The warriors will meet after we have eaten, and before we mark my father’s journey to the next world.”

 

Daniel did not eat immediately but let his hands lie in his lap until they stopped shaking. He waited a few moments and then calmly picked up his food to begin eating, making a mental note to tell Mitchell in no uncertain terms that he should not offer a running commentary next time.

 

 

 

As soon as those gathered at the high table had finished eating, and before some of the hall-dwellers had, Eirik coldly announced, “The warriors will now discuss the matters at hand.” Women, children, and the oldest men began to leave. The SGC personnel and Vala all looked to Daniel for a cue. He did not move and was gratified that they all remained where they were as well; they hadn’t discussed this, but they were taking his cues well. Eirik glared. Cameron smiled. The rest simply returned Eirik’s gaze coolly as it moved to each of them. Finally Eirik said, “My warriors will now offer me counsel.” Daniel and Andrea rose at once, followed immediately by the rest. They gathered outside a short distance from the hall. Many others were going about their business inside the enclosure, but no one seemed inclined to eavesdrop on the group.

 

“That went well,” said Andrea admiringly.

 

“Better than I hoped,” Daniel admitted with a cautious smile.

“Huh? What did I miss?” Cameron asked.

 

“We can’t hope to change Eirik’s mind,” Andrea explained. “But we can encourage the men whom we know are against his plans to speak up. And now everyone knows what we know, and at least Orn was willing to speak up against fighting.”

 

“And if Eirik goes ahead anyway?” insisted Cameron.

 

“Then,” Daniel said, rocking a little from heel to toe and back again, “we have a problem.” He walked a little further away from the hall.

 

“We can’t actually do anything,” Freedman said.

 

“Right,” Daniel agreed.

 

“But we can say. . . .” Vala began.

 

Daniel shook his head. “We’ve said enough at this point.”

 

“But if they’re going to attack people who are coming for the funeral, can’t we just warn those people?” Cameron asked. “Or would that be interfering too much?” Daniel wondered how to explain what he was doing; he wasn’t sure he could. He was working by feel, without the sort of grand strategy Mitchell seemed to think he had. “How the hell do you train for this stuff?” Mitchell continued.

 

“You don’t,” said Andrea. “We’ve been doing a balancing act for four years now.”

 

“Giving away a secret plan of attack would be way off balance,” said Freedman. “Eirik is our main ally—and, as Doctor Jackson said, he controls the Stargate. If we betray him, we can never come back.”

 

“And we’ll be lucky to leave here alive,” Vala added.

 

Daniel frowned. “But we do have allies among some of the other tribes.” He couldn’t think of how that would help them in the current situation, but he didn’t voice that thought.

 

“What if your advice just pushed Eirik into moving up the attack?” asked Vala suddenly. “What if he attacks before or during the funeral to prove he doesn’t need our advice?”

 

Daniel let an exasperated sound escape and shook his head. “I know, I know. It was a risk.”

“Well, you didn’t tell us about this risk!” Cameron said in annoyance. The looks of amazement he got from SG-8 answered him. “Hey, you mean I’m supposed to figure this stuff out? Haven’t you all had diplomatic training?”

 

“Oh, yes, sir!” said Tom with a hollow chuckle. “Foreign Relations 521: Negotiating with Vikings.”

 

“If they do mount an attack,” Daniel said, thinking out loud, “we don’t have the force to intervene. We can’t stop a bloodbath. We can’t warn the others, because that might just bring on a pre-emptive strike; then we’d get Eirik’s people killed.” He made another sound of frustration.

 

“I think all we can do, sir,” said Andrea, “is walk away.”

 

Daniel looked around for a moment, uncertain whom she was addressing. Then he looked back at her and queried, “Sir? Since when do you call me—”

 

“I’m bowing to your expertise here.”

 

“And offering advice,” Tom added with a little smile.

 

“We can’t take sides. We can’t condone an attack by anyone on anyone. I think we have to leave if it comes to that,” Andrea reiterated as Tom nodded.

 

“That might shame Eirik, but I’m not sure it would be sufficient.” Daniel frowned.

 

“It would if enough of his people took it seriously,” Andrea countered.

 

“If an attack has already started,” argued Daniel, “they won’t be in a position to do anything. They can’t just leave fighting—even if they notice us going!”

 

“DanielJackson,” Teal’c broke in quietly. “We cannot take responsibility for everything. The war between Rand and Caledonia?”

 

Daniel’s gaze went to somewhere over Teal’c’s shoulder. “We helped them in the end,” Daniel said almost as quietly after a brief pause. He still wasn’t certain their help would be enough; the situation there was not entirely stable. He suppressed a shudder as he remembered the bombed-out city around the bunker. Even on his most recent visit, some rubble had yet to be cleared.

 

“But you could not prevent great loss of life. But neither,” Teal’c added more strongly, “was it your fault. You knew that then. You must be prepared for that again.”

 

“Right,” Daniel conceded. “But there we didn’t just walk away!”

 

“Weren’t you supposed to?” Mitchell asked. Daniel glared. “Hey, and you did actually take sides on that one, didn’t you?”

 

“Was that when you were lost for weeks last year?” Andrea asked. Tom confirmed and started to say something more, but Daniel cut them off.

 

“Totally different,” he said dismissively. He headed off Mitchell’s query. “There we set off the overthrow of the government and sparked a world war! We had to do something.”

 

“But—” Mitchell tried to object.

 

“And the SGC had to get Dr. Jackson back,” Freedman finally cut in. Daniel gritted his teeth but did not respond. Much as he was appalled that the SGC had seemed more concerned for him than for the entire planet, he knew Jack would simply have locked the planet out of the dialing program if he had not been trapped there. Though SG-1’s visit had set off the war, at least his long stay there had kept Jack trying to negotiate and ultimately led to aid for the new government.

 

“I am so out of my depth,” muttered Cam, mostly to himself. Daniel mentally agreed, but he bit his tongue; he could still remember when negotiating on strange planets was as new to him as it was now to Mitchell.

 

“We all are,” Freedman said.

 

“You’re sure we can’t just distract them with the Ori? But I thought you could convince them, Jackson! I mean, you persuaded O’Neill to get involved when—” Daniel looked daggers at Cam and walked away before he issued a rejoinder that he might regret.

 

 

 

In the end, Eirik did not deign to tell them anything personally. Orn, the middle-aged man who had called out in the hall, came cheerfully to find them. Mitchell was surprised by the man’s continuing good humor. The visitors quickly gathered to learn that Eirik had been advised by his men, even some of the young ones, that using his father’s funeral as cover for an attack would not bring honor. In a lengthy debate, Eirik’s closest companions argued that he should issue an open challenge after the funeral; others argued against. Finally Eirik determined to do nothing immediately.

 

“He told me to tell you the decision; he said he knew I would tell you anyway,” Orn concluded.

 

“Doesn’t that worry you?” asked Mitchell.

 

Orn grinned. “My grandmother was the old king’s mother’s sister. Eirik will not touch me.”

 

Cam couldn’t follow this. He started to make a show of counting relations on his fingers, hoping someone would rescue him from the web of relations, but Daniel put out a hand to stop him. “Have you been taking lessons from Jack? Because the universe cannot hold two Jack O’Neills!”

 

“Funny, he said the same thing about you.”

 

“He did?” Daniel was clearly mystified. “How did that come up?” Cam smiled and said nothing. O’Neill had never said of the kind to him, but he’d guessed it would stop Jackson for at least a moment. Obviously, he’d guessed right.

 

“Orn is Einarr’s first cousin once removed and therefore Eirik’s second cousin,” Andrea supplied a tad smugly.

 

More seriously, Orn said, “He has certainly not put off thought of an attack. He will wait for you to leave, I think. He makes no definite plans now because he knows you will hear.”

 

Andrea blew out her breath, forming a cloud in front of her face. “King Einarr would have had us in the council.”

 

“Eirik is not his father,” Orn agreed sadly.

 

“So there’s nothing we can do?” Cameron looked around at the others. They did not meet his eyes, making him very uneasy.

 

“We stay for the funeral,” Daniel said.

 

“Yes! Soon other warriors and their women will come. We will feast.” Orn smiled again.

“‘Their’ women?” asked Vala, narrowing her eyes.

 

“Never mind,” said Daniel.

 

“Didn’t we just feast?” asked Cam. Dr. Lam was not going to be happy about his cholesterol—assuming they all walked out of here in one piece.

 

“Yes,” several voices answered.

 

“If they have trouble producing enough food. . . .”

 

“It’s how Eirik shows how wealthy and powerful he is,” Andrea answered. “All the leaders do it.”

 

“I must go,” Orn said. “There are preparations to be made.” He nodded to them as he left.

 

Andrea explained that the funeral would be the next day, beginning before sunset and continuing into the night. Funeral guests would leave the following day, and presumably the SG teams should as well.

 

“So that’s it, then,” Daniel said pensively.

 

“It’s stupid!” Vala surprised them with a sudden burst of anger. “You know the Goa’uld think we’re all animals and can’t be trusted to rule ourselves. Well, sometimes they’re right! These people got rid of the Goa’uld just to kill themselves off. Some victory!” She glared at Daniel. “I thought you were getting their attention in there, but it’s apparently not enough. Can’t you do anything? Because in your position I sure as hell could!”

 

“I’m open to suggestion!” Daniel shouted back.

 

Vala lowered her voice, but it still held force: “Kill Eirik!”

 

“I think assassination is currently banned under our rules of engagement,” Cam said uncertainly. He would have to check on that when he got back.

 

“Assassination is out,” Freedman said, shaking his head. “First, we’d need to be at war with his people!”

 

“We’d have to kill all his cronies, too, or they’d just kill us and then take their bloodlust out on their nearest neighbors.” Daniel added sarcastically, “You know, I really don’t think that will make things better. Tom’s right: we can’t do it.”

 

“I can. And you don’t think taking out the ringleader will take care of the problem?” Vala challenged. “Look, I let you play it your way in the hall, but I really think—”

 

“This isn’t a gang!” said Daniel in exasperation. “This is their king, whether we like it or not. Whether they even like it or not. They may not all have wanted Eirik as king, but if anyone were going to challenge him, they’d have done so by now. We’d alienate the friends we still have among his people if we tried violence. Any of us,” he added, glowering at Vala.

 

“Wait! Is king a position for life?” Cam asked. He thought Freedman wrinkled his nose at him for a moment, but then the major went back to observing the others, who had simply ignored him. “Stupid question,” Cam sighed.

 

“We shouldn’t count those friends out,” Andrea noted. “We’ve gotten some good intel. Maybe by the time we leave, they’ll take a stand. Or maybe we’ll see a way out.”

 

“If they’re relying on you to solve their problems, I hope their gods prove more reliable than the ones I know.” Vala frowned at Daniel and walked away.

 

“Haven’t you seen enough death?” he called after her in obvious frustration. She turned again to give him a glacial glare and walked on.

 

 

 

The afternoon soon became much livelier as visitors from other tribes rode in attired in colorful clothing. Most wore animal furs, but some had hoods dyed in red or even purple, and the small packs on the animals were made of clothes of many colors. Cameron wished he could get away from the ripe smells of the animals, some of which had come far. When he thought about it, he wasn’t sure the people smelled much better, and the people got even closer. A number had met SG-8 and SG-1 before, and Daniel and Teal’c were greeted most warmly. Mitchell was eyed with a touch of suspicion. Vala came back to meet the visitors near the front gate of the enclosure and immediately received warm welcomes from most even though she had never met them before. Cam thought of asking how she did that, then realized he did not want these people getting more friendly with him.

“I have seen enough death,” she muttered under her breath to Daniel as a new arrival finished thumping him on the back and moved on to Teal’c.

 

“I know,” he said apologetically. “I . . . I shouldn’t have said that.” They both smiled in time for the next member of the party to greet them. Cameron listened closely, but nothing more followed. He was still trying to work out how Daniel Jackson, multiple Ph.D., negotiator with aliens, and repeated savior of Earth, could fight like a child with this woman—or why she kept goading him to do so.

 

“How many are there to go, and can’t we do this in the hall?” Vala said through a forced smile a while later.

 

“What she said,” Cam put in.

 

“They’ll stop before dark,” Daniel replied through an equally frozen smile. “Then more will come tomorrow, probably right until the funeral rites begin in the early evening. And yes, we have to do it out here. It proves how strong we are or some such—”

 

“Nonsense?” asked Vala through a big grin and clenched teeth. He nodded.

 

At a lull, Daniel turned to Vala and said, “You aren’t really going to do anything, are you? Because, as you so happily reminded me back on ‘your’ planet, if you die, I die.”

 

Vala sighed. “I’m not keen on dying myself. Besides, you’ve convinced me.”

 

He stepped closer. “Okay, now I know you’re planning something. Out with it.” Teal’c and SG-8 were close enough to hear but apparently decided not to look. Mitchell, however, had no such compunction and turned more towards them.

 

“I’m not planning anything. . . .”

 

“Don’t insult me. ” Daniel looked carefully around to be sure no non-SGC people were within shouting distance but still kept his voice down. “Look, if you’re planning to warn some of these people, it won’t work! We don’t know who Eirik plans to target, and if we warn the wrong people, or too many, they could mass against him. Other tribes or alliances attacking here could be even worse than Eirik going on a raid.”

 

“Hmm. Okay, you’ve really convinced me now.”

 

Daniel clenched his teeth and his fists, but Mitchell chuckled. “She’s yanking your chain, Jackson. She doesn’t have anything planned. She just wants to keep you on your toes.”

 

Teal’c was looking Daniel up and down. “Don’t!” Daniel said, holding up a hand. “Just don’t say anything.”

 

“You’re no fun either,” Vala said to Cameron. Then another crowd of visitors entered, drowning them in back-slapping, sudden hugs, and bad breath, and they kept greeting new arrivals until at last it was time to eat.

 

 

 

The next twenty-two hours passed uneventfully in alternations of greeting, eating, sleeping, and more greeting. Daniel felt quite bruised from welcoming men and women from the other tribes. He was not sure how he was going to explain that to the new doctor, who seemed as sharp-eyed as Janet. The Tau’ri had little time to themselves; the hall was terribly crowded, and the hut in which Daniel and Teal’c slept was stiflingly full. Andrea and Vala reported conditions not much better. Plenty of talk went back and forth among Eirik’s people and the newcomers, but everyone seemed to have a good time, and a few disputes that began with mead were settled with mead rather than bloodshed. Still, Daniel felt uneasy.

 

“Everything seems to be going quite well,” Vala said to Daniel as they gathered outside the enclosure in the late afternoon to go to the grove for the funeral. “Does that make you as nervous as it makes me?”

 

“Seeing Eirik playing good host? Absolutely,” he replied. “He wouldn’t be in such a good mood if he didn’t have something planned.”

 

“Orn would tell us if something’s up,” Tom said, walking beside Daniel.

 

“If he knew.”

 

“You can’t have a raid without Orn knowing. Even Eirik wouldn’t pull that,” Andrea said very quietly.

 

Their opportunity to talk ended then as a single horse, the stallion that had borne Einarr in his last years, pulled a small wagon with the body laid out in armor. The feet were towards the horse. Surrounding the body were a variety of ornaments; a few were clearly recognizable as naquada.

 

Mitchell whispered in surprise, “He’s in good shape! I mean. . . .”

 

“It’s below freezing out here!” Daniel hissed back. Eirik walked at the horse’s head, guiding the horse. Next to him walked a heavily-robed priestess. Warriors from the tribe walked behind, with Orn among those close to the wagon. The half-hour walk in the cold seemed very long; the snow in the enclosure was packed down hard, but out here it was harder to get through. Daniel’s legs ached. He pulled a scarf up to cover the lower half of his face, but then his glasses fogged up, leaving him nearly blind. He had to pull the scarf down again. Finally they crested a hill to see a grove of trees much like Earth’s oaks. The hill curved around a hollow that had several small mounds in the center. Daniel had been shown the grove before, but he had never witnessed any rites.

 

Eirik led the horse to a space chosen by the priestess.

 

“Have you ever seen a funeral here before?” Andrea breathed to the archaeologist. He shook his head. “Like the rest of their religion, it doesn’t exactly match what we know of the early Norse on Earth, though it has some similarities. It may point to earlier rituals, or it may have branched off. . . .” Teal’c fixed them both with a look and Andrea broke off.

 

Orn and another man brought forward a heavy weight. Eirik tied it to the horse’s bridle, and they let it fall to the ground. The priestess held out a hand and fed something to the stallion.

 

“They’re not. . . .” Daniel breathed. “Damn, I forgot! Vala? Vala, you might not want to see this.” He cursed himself for not thinking of the immolation to come. He’d been so caught up in his curiosity about the ritual that he hadn’t thought about his companion’s reaction. His memories were bad enough, but Vala had been burned to death once, and nearly died a second time the same way.

 

“They are,” Andrea confirmed. “I’ve never seen a funeral either; Hlifi explained it to me last night.”

 

“Not want to see what?” Vala hissed.

 

“Remember what I said about Einarr’s ashes?” Vala looked at Daniel with huge eyes, but the priestess began to speak and they all fell silent. The rhythmic, alliterative speech went on for some time as the horse’s head dropped lower. Eirik remained at the horse’s head, stroking his neck slowly. Daniel found himself almost mesmerized, even as part of him cringed in anticipation of what would come.

 

Men and women prominent in other tribes came forward, each bearing a piece of wood, and placed them around the horse and wagon. Then more people came forward hauling wooden sleds with firewood on them. They pushed the firewood into a pile around and under the wagon and the horse. Eirik stepped slowly back from the horse. The priestess pulled a small box from her robes and held it out to Eirik. He took it and held it as she opened it and removed two closed vials. She sprinkled their liquid liberally at the king’s head, on either side, and then at the horse’s head. She took the box from Eirik, who removed two small black items. He walked to his father’s head and struck them together, creating sparks. The wood with the accelerant quickly caught fire, and Eirik stepped well back with the priestess as flames engulfed the pyre, its contents, and the horse.

 

Vala grabbed Daniel’s arm so hard it hurt. Mitchell and the newest member of SG-8 gasped. “Sorry,” whispered Andrea. “I should have briefed you.” Daniel couldn’t quite look away, not even to see how the others were faring at the sight.

 

The new king and the priestess stood several meters away from the pyre. The flames rushed quickly up the wagon and over the corpse, and the motionless but still-living horse. Soon the whole was engulfed in flames. It took many long minutes for the fire to consume everything; Daniel finally closed his eyes as the horse collapsed to the ground and thanked whatever powers there be that the wind was blowing the smoke away from him and Vala, who was still crushing his arm.

 

Eirik began to sing and others followed. Eventually, nearly everything had burned. As the flames began to die down in puddles in the deep snow, people came forward a few at a time to throw handfuls of snow on the ashes and then leave. The SG teams and Vala followed, Vala letting go of Daniel at last to cast some snow onto the hissing pile. He realized he’d nearly lost feeling in that arm.

 

Once they’d gone back up and crested the hill, people began speaking again.

 

“I’m sorry,” said Daniel eventually to Vala as the others moved farther away. “I should have told you there would be a pyre. The ground is too hard for burial—”

 

“It’s all right,” she assured him. “You did say something about ashes. I was just . . . surprised. Seems a waste of a good beast, too!” she added.

 

“Yeah,” Daniel echoed. “I didn’t realize the horse. . . . They’ll put up an earth mound over . . . the burial in the spring.” They walked together in silence for a few minutes as the other SGC members walked a little faster and pulled ahead of them. The ache pulled at Daniel’s legs again, but other aches took more attention now.

 

“You’ve never told me about your wife,” Vala said suddenly. Her voice sounded tense.

 

“You haven’t asked,” Daniel replied cautiously, surprised at her question.

 

“Should I not?”

 

“Why are you asking now?” he evaded.

 

“Does it matter?”

 

“Did somebody teach you to play Questions?”

 

“What?”

“Doesn’t count.” Daniel smiled a little in spite of himself. She was making an effort; he shouldn’t bait her. But he didn’t often have such an easy time doing so.

 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about!” Vala said with a note of exasperation.

 

“That’s okay.” Daniel was in no hurry to answer her questions, especially if she had forgotten them by now.

 

“You just seem . . . awfully quiet,” Vala said after a moment. “That Andrea person seemed fascinated by the whole thing, and I thought you’d be up with her, talking.” Some people had torches for the walk back in darkness, and they could see Andrea ahead, now lecturing animatedly to Cameron and the others, but only Mitchell appeared to be one listening. “Did it remind you . . . of your wife? Of her funeral?”

 

“No,” Daniel said softly and not entirely truthfully. He had been thinking of Sha’re, though not the final rites. He had been thinking how he’d never been able to show his wife what snow was like, and how Eirik, for all his bravado and even anger at his father, must miss Einarr. “Hers was almost the exact opposite. We buried her. There was no priest or priestess. Her father and I did the ceremony. It was simple and brief. We put a feather in the scale. . . .” he trailed off.

 

Vala waited several more steps before she asked gently, “What scale?”

 

Good, a question he could answer easily. “It was their belief. If the feather side of the scale goes down, the heart is light, pure and free from sin. If it goes up, heart is heavy with sin, and Ammit eats the heart, and they are lost forever.”

 

“And do you believe that too?”

 

“What?” Daniel stumbled a little as he tried to look Vala in the face in a darkness lit only by occasional torches carried by some walking nearby.

 

“I know people on your world have many different beliefs,” Vala said tentatively. “You haven’t really talked about yours.”

 

“Oh!” Daniel finally realized how little Vala actually knew about him. “You really don’t know—I forgot I haven’t told you. And I guess no one else would. My wife, Sha’re, was from Abydos. The first world we went to through the Stargate. We killed the Goa’uld, Ra, and I . . . found myself married to her.” He still felt the wonder that he had when she first told him they were married.

 

Vala laughed a little. “So you do like assertive women?” she teased.

 

“I have no problem with assertive women.” He smiled at memories of Sha’re telling him what to do, how to wear his robes, what he had done wrong. “It was kind of a misunderstanding. When I found out . . . by then, I loved her. And she loved me. And so we stayed married. And I stayed on Abydos.”

 

They walked another couple of minutes in silence before Vala asked, “So they knew their ‘god’ was a Goa’uld and yet they still believed—what?”

 

“They still believed in the afterlife,” Daniel said. “They still believed that purity of heart mattered.” His voice became more passionate in spite of his efforts to hold his emotions in check. “And God knows”—he caught himself—“if there is a God, or Goddess, he, or she, or they—know that Sha’re was pure of heart. She loved me so much.” He hoped his sudden swipe of a gloved hand across his face did not betray the tears had started to frost on his eyelashes.

 

“And you loved her,” she said with surprising gentleness, even melancholy. Daniel nodded silently. “And still do.”

 

“I’ll always love Sha’re,” he said after a bit. “It still hurts. Not as . . . often as it used to; not as much as it used to. But it still hurts.”

 

“But you had someone who really loved you,” Vala said with an unusual softness to her voice. The walls of the enclosure were coming into view. Mitchell was trailing behind the others now; he had been looking back to make sure they were still in sight as they had been falling further behind. Daniel waved towards the enclosure, and Cam nodded and picked up his pace again.

 

“And you had someone who loved you,” he said tentatively, appreciative that she’d put aside her usual teasing to show some genuine interest in him.

 

She gave a short, bitter laugh. “I thought.” She paused. “How long ago did your wife die?”

 

“Six years ago, almost.” Daniel added, “but I lost her two years before that. She was taken by a Goa’uld.” Vala nodded. “But your fiancé. . . .” Daniel returned to his query, now that he felt more certain that the fiancé had actually existed.

 

Vala stopped and turned to him. “If he had really loved me, wouldn’t he still?” He could hear some bitterness in her tone.

 

“I don’t know,” Daniel confessed as he stopped too. “Sha’re was very, very special.” Vala’s eyebrows went up. “She . . . her host tried to kill me. Would have succeeded, if Teal’c hadn’t . . . . Teal’c had to. . . . Amaunet was using the ribbon device on me. Sha’re couldn’t stop her— Amaunet was the Goa’uld—but Sha’re did send me a message. Through the ribbon device.” He looked down at the snow, embarrassed. He hadn’t meant to say that much.

 

“Through the ribbon device?” Vala’s voice held an edge of ridicule for a moment, but she quickly changed her tone. “I’ve never. . . . I mean, I’ve used the things, but never. . . .”

 

“Sha’re sent me a message,” Daniel said, a little defensively. Now that he had started, he wanted Vala to know what kind of person Sha’re was. “No one else wanted to believe at first either, but she told me where her son was. It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t my imagination. She gave me facts, and I used them—we used them, SG-1—to find her son. So I know it was real. She told me as she was dying that she loved me, that she wanted me to forgive . . . and that she wanted me to live.” He looked at Vala for a long moment. “And so I did. For her.”

 

Vala stood there with her mouth slightly open, her breath fogging the air between them. Her jaw started to work, but then she turned away. “She must have been very special indeed, Daniel. But so were you. You waited.” She started back to the front gate.

 

She was clearly upset, and Daniel had not meant for that to happen at all. He had to jog a little to catch up. “Look, I’m—”

 

“Sorry that my fiancé didn’t love me that much?” Vala turned toward him with a near-smile that he could make out now in the stronger light of the large torches atop the walls. “We can’t all have. . . .” She made a motion with her fingers in the air.

 

Daniel said nothing but walked alongside her until they were inside the gate. Mitchell was standing there. “Wondering when you two were going to catch up,” he said. “Orn says there’s more mead to be had.”

 

“I’m sure Orn will excuse me,” Vala said. “Good night.” She headed towards her sleeping hut.

 

“Hey! What?” He turned to Daniel.

 

“It’s not mandatory,” Daniel said tiredly. “The mead,” he clarified. “Eirik and the priestess will be the last ones back, but it’s not like you’ll get good information. They already know they can drink me under the table. But feel free to join in the festivities. I’m sure all of SG-8 will be there!” He headed off to his hut.

 

 

 

Morning already? Cameron thought when he opened his eyes at a bright light coming through the open hall doors. This time everyone else still seemed asleep. Needing air, he pulled on his heavy coat. Jackson was waiting outside the hall as he emerged into the bright sunlight still rubbing his eyes; the archaeologist started walking and Cam followed automatically, though he did ask, “Where are we going?”

 

“To get some air. Everybody else is already outside the wall.”

 

“Oh! Air sounds good,” Cameron said with relief despite the cold. “I thought SG-8 were still in there somewhere. I think the fire marshall would not approve of the piles of people in there.”

 

Daniel snickered. “Yeah. I suppose I should thank Vala that I’m not sleeping in there.”

 

“Thanks accepted!” came a voice from outside the open gate.

 

“Ears like a bat,” Cam whispered.

 

“I heard that! Is that derogatory?”

 

“No, it’s a compliment,” Daniel answered, nodding as the two men stopped with the rest of their teams.

 

“So wassup?” Cameron asked after a moment of enjoying the air. Cold though it was, it was significantly fresher than that inside the enclosure, especially near the hall.

 

“Lots of mysterious comings and goings,” Vala whispered dramatically. “Didn’t you notice?”

 

“People were in and out all night! They stopped serving mead only when the servers fell over!” Cameron shut his eyes again.

 

“Teal’c says there were a lot of men going in and out,” Daniel affirmed. The Jaffa nodded slightly. “There were in the sleeping hut too. Andrea says that’s not normal.”

 

“I don’t suppose everybody was just using the potty?” Cam asked.

 

“Teal’c,” Daniel asked, “who was coming and going?”

 

“The men I observed leaving and returning drank very little, and they were not from Eirik’s tribe.”

 

“Damn.” Daniel drove his boot into the snow. “But if Eirik is planning something and keeping it hidden from his own people, what were the others doing?”

 

“Um, this may be an . . . indelicate question,” Cam asked, “but were any of the men . . . visiting the women?” Vala and Andrea started laughing. “Okay, I’ll take that as a yes?”

 

“Oh, they tried,” said Vala. “They were too drunk to realize they were being guided right back out the door until we shut it behind them.”

 

Andrea added, “A couple of the women in the hut with us the last two nights never came last night. They may have met men in storage or cooking huts.”

 

“Join the SGC, gossip about who’s sleeping with whom?” Cam cracked. “What?” he said to the mixture of annoyed and amused looks. As Andrea started laughing, he realized that the annoyed looks were from his teammates—at least he liked to think of them as his teammates—and the amused looks were from SG-8.

 

“Far as I know, sir, SG-1 is the only team that doesn’t gossip about who’s sleeping with who,” said Freedman with exaggerated respect. “You’re an example to us all, sirs.” He saluted. Andrea was practically howling.

 

“My God, Daniel! Have they been talking about us?” Vala’s gasp sent Andrea to her knees.

 

Daniel crossed his arms as well as he could in the bulky coat. “Mitchell, you’ve apparently missed briefings on some very important aspects of life at the SGC. You’ll be expected to make that up when you get back.”

 

“I believe MajorFerretti could help,” Teal’c added.

 

Daniel pulled Andrea back to her feet. “Hey, don’t think your team is exempt!”

 

“But I believe what you would call the ‘juiciest’ rumors pertain to all-male teams of Marines,” Teal’c added unexpectedly.

 

“Huh?” Cameron looked up at the Jaffa. “And what is this ‘what you would call’ business anyway? You speak English better than I do! And you obviously know way more than I do about what’s going on!”

 

Freedman clapped him on the shoulder. “Congratulations, sir. I think you’re on your way to understanding how things really work at the SGC.”

 

“As amusing as all this is,” Vala began, “I can answer calls of nature too, and it’s amazing what you hear in the outhouses.” That brought everyone back to seriousness. “Daniel, dear, I really think you should spend more time in them.” He crossed his arms again. “I don’t know what the others were up to; they certainly weren’t discussing it in the toilets. But a few of Eirik’s friends seem to think something will happen soon, but Eirik won’t tell any of them what or when.”

 

“Wait,” said Tom. “If you could hear this, who else could?”

 

“Eirik’s screwed himself, hasn’t he?” asked Vala without surprise. “His idiot friends couldn’t keep their mouths shut, and now everyone knows he’s up to something.” A silence followed. More voices could be heard from inside the enclosure, but most were very muted, and many fewer people were about than on the previous morning.

 

“Well, there’s gotta be something we can do,” Cam said at last.

 

“Tell Eirik he’s screwed himself?” suggested Vala.

 

“In so many words?” Cam returned.

 

“I can use blunter language if you like,” she offered.

 

“Yeah, well, the problem is that Eirik isn’t going to listen to you,” Daniel said.

 

“Oh, like he listens to you?” Vala made her head-tossing motion again.

 

“I don’t think he listens to anybody,” Cam said. “So if you two have finished?”

 

“Maybe if we can persuade one of the younger warriors,” Andrea said. To cynical looks, she answered, “Well, we must have gotten somewhere if Eirik agreed to put off the raid. Orn and Stigandr—he’s the best of the younger ones,” she added for Cam’s benefit, “asked us to bring Daniel, and some others have come over to their side, I know. But if we tell them the cat’s out of the bag, Eirik’s liable to blame us.”

 

“I think we need to take that risk,” Daniel said.

 

“So tell Eirik they’re on to him and he can’t afford to try anything.” Freedman clarified.

 

“For a long time,” Daniel said, nodding. “It’s not a permanent solution, but maybe if we can get him to rethink things, then we schedule another visit for pretty soon. . . .”

 

“Anybody got any better ideas?” Freedman asked.

 

“Gunnar’s not exactly in the inner circle,” said Vala, “but I think he and I have reached an understanding.” Daniel’s eyebrows went up into his hood. “I’ll speak to him as well.”

 

“I’ll talk to Orn and some of his friends again,” said Daniel. “Maybe if we work on enough of them, we’ll get the message across. Orn at least trusts us.”

 

“Right,” said Tom. “I’ve got a couple of buddies among Orn’s generation too. You guys friendly with anybody younger?” He looked at the silent members of SG-8.

 

The silence drew out a little longer. “Do women count?” Perkins finally asked cautiously. Cameron started to hoot but bit it off at a glare from Tom. “I don’t mean like that, sir! I’ve just been talking to this one girl, Valdis. . . .”

 

“Valdis? Hardly a ‘girl,’ Sergeant!” Andrea exlaimed. “Sorry, go on,” she added when Perkins looked at the ground.

 

“I just like to talk to her, okay? I didn’t know anybody here and you all do. . . .”

 

“I don’t!” said Cam, but he was ignored.

 

“We’ve just talked, nothing else. I know what I’m supposed to do and not do.” He snuck a look at Daniel that did not go unnoticed; the Major cleared his throat. Mitchell could barely restrain himself: was that man taking a swipe at Jackson? Not smart. “But I think we have a sort of understanding—maybe not the sort Miss Vala here has with Gunnar. . . .” Miss Vala? Man, this guy was green, thought Mitchell.

 

“Apparently not,” Vala said in an undertone.

 

“Worth talking to, anyway,” Daniel rushed in. “Salazar?” The final member of SG-8 shook his head.

 

“I shoot the breeze with some of the young guys, but I don’t know if they’ll listen to me.” He hesitated. “And if they don’t . . . I’m not good at this stuff like you guys are. I’m afraid I’d make things worse. Like you said, they’re already suspicious of us.”

 

Tom shook his head. “You don’t ‘shoot the breeze,’ Salazar. You listen, and you just talk when you got something to say. How ’bout you figure out who’s most likely to listen among the guys you know and talk to him?”

 

Cameron waved a hand in the air. “I move we wait until after lunch, after the worst of the hangovers, before talking to anybody. ’Cause we want people to understand and remember what we say.”

 

Daniel nodded. “We should probably wait until the visitors are gone anyway. The ones with the farthest to travel should be going in a little while; the closer neighbors will be leaving in early to mid-afternoon. I’m not sure how long we can put off leaving, though.”

 

“Okay, people,” said Freedman, looking around the group. “We have a plan. Let’s split up ’til then. The guards are watching us.”

 

“Yeah,” said Daniel, “but if they were watching Andrea, they think we’re just goofing off out here anyway.” He gestured at the captain, who made a face. Suddenly his hood was yanked down, snow put down the back of his neck, and the hood returned to some semblance of its earlier position.

 

“Just trying to help!” Vala said, backing away as he turned towards her.

 

“Do you know what frostbite is like?” he yelled, advancing. “Do you know what the temperature is out here?

 

“You have no sense of humor!” She started to run backwards but tripped. Daniel relented and went to help her up as she gave him a pathetic look—and she whipped a snowball into his face with the hand that had seemed to be under her.

 

“The best and brightest Earth has to offer!” Cameron grinned until a hard snowball caught him squarely on the back of the head. He turned in astonishment to find Teal’c brushing excess snow off his hands.

 

“Excellent cover, sirs,” said Freedman, picking his way out of the group. “No one will think we’re up to anything.”

 

 

 

The team members busied themselves talking with Eirik’s people and did not have time to reconvene before dinner. Daniel wished he and Andrea had been able to get together again to plan what they should say. As they entered the hall and seated themselves, he said to Andrea in a low tone, “I think you should be the one to talk to Eirik. At this point, he knows you better than he knows me, and, no offense, but he’s not going to get in a pissing contest with a woman.”

 

“But, sir—”

 

“Quit the ‘sir’ stuff, Andrea. You’ve been doing this a lot longer than I have. Mitchell thinks I’m some kind of miracle worker, but I just did the broad outlines of a few agreements. You’ve done the hard work of getting detailed treaties on three planets and an interplanetary agreement among those traders last year. You can do this.”

 

“Daniel,” she whispered as she sat, “I don’t think anybody can do this.” She nodded to either side. They’d been seated towards the middle this time, not near Eirik. The king’s closest friends were nearest him.

 

“Oh,” he whispered back, “so you’re trying to ruin my record?” He smiled encouragingly.

 

Vala leaned over to Andrea to say, “You don’t have to worry about his record anymore.”

 

“Hey, it’s your fault the entire Lusian Alliance is out to get us!” Daniel shot back.

 

“Here we go again,” sighed Cam.

 

Eirik stood as the servers came in. “Before we eat, I believe our guests have some more counsel for us?” he asked mockingly.

 

Andrea stood without visible hesitation, putting her hands behind her at parade rest. Daniel felt guilty for being glad she was the one speaking this time. “We do.”

 

“And from a woman this time?”

 

“I speak for us all.” The others nodded.

 

“But you did not speak to me first; you spoke to some among my men.”

 

“You have said, King, that you wish counsel only from your own warriors. We have given them information we hope they will use to counsel you wisely.”

 

“And you have given information to our enemies?”

 

“I was not aware that you had enemies at this time, King. You receive tribute from all the nearby tribes—”

 

“Token tribute!” By now absolute silence had fallen in the hall except for the two voices. Daniel could have kicked himself for sitting on the wrong side of the bench; the people on the main floor were behind him, so he could not see their faces. From the stillness, however, he knew Andrea had everyone’s attention.

 

“Even distant tribes sent guests to your father the king’s funeral, King, out of respect for him and for you. Enemies would not do this. But we have given no counsel or information to other tribes, though they are our friends too. Indeed, I believe your men will tell you that we were very careful in speaking to them. None of us was among those meeting secretly in the night.”

 

Gasps went through the hall, and no one made any attempt to stifle them. Eirik’s face did not change.

 

“In fact, King,” Andrea continued smoothly, “we may be working against our other allies in telling you what we know. But you are our first and best friends among the Skalifolk. And so we tell you: some of your men were careless in speaking, or the mead spoke through them.” Anger crossed a few faces. “We believe they were overheard by members of neighboring tribes. Those members then met with each other—we believe—to share that information.”

 

Eirik frowned. “And what did they say?”

 

“That we did not hear, King.”

 

“Why not?”

 

Andrea hesitated a moment, and Vala jumped in. “Because members of other tribes, O King, showed more discretion than your warriors.”

 

Daniel looked daggers at Vala and would have tried to nudge or kick her if Gunnar’s bulk hadn’t intervened. There was a scuffling sound under the table and he thought that Mitchell had kicked her for him, but she did not take her eyes off the king.

 

“And what is your name? Are you a warrior?” Eirik asked scornfully, despite having been introduced to her when they arrived at the hall.

 

“Vala,” she answered, “and I am.” She stood, stepped clear of the bench and table, and had a dagger in hand in one fluid motion. Daniel started to jump up but Gunnar pushed so hard on his shoulder that he nearly banged his head on the table.

 

Eirik froze for a moment.

 

“Do not draw weapons in the hall!” Andrea’s horrified whisper carried for some distance.

 

“I merely answer the king’s question,” Vala said with a grin. “I am willing to demonstrate, but if you think no demonstration is necessary?” Her dagger disappeared into a hidden sheath and she was once again seated. Gunnar released Daniel’s shoulder, and he straightened painfully.

 

Eirik glared at Andrea and Daniel in turn.

 

“We apologize, King, for the poor manners of our companion,” Andrea said with only the slightest tremble in her voice. “We should have taught her better customs. But her intentions are good: she means to prove her value to you.”

 

Eirik suddenly gave a fierce grin. “She has more spirit than any of you!”

 

“Thank you, King,” said Vala drily. Andrea quickly motioned Vala to stand again, which she did. “I do not back away from a fight. Nor do I start one when there are other ways of getting what I want. I think there are much better ways of getting what you want.” She smiled; the last few words sounded almost teasing.

 

“And what do I want?” Eirik leaned forward, placing his hands on the table.

 

“Respect.” Eirik straightened immediately and the men nearest him began to grumble.

 

“Not that you lack respect!” Daniel hissed at Vala under cover of the noise at the head of the table.

 

“But, of course, you already have respect,” Vala resumed smoothly. “You . . .” she looked at Andrea, who was clearly mouthing “tribute”. “You receive tribute from all your neighbors. Did they not bring you